DA OPENING ADDRESS 201518 - 19 September 2015, Sutera Hotel, Seremban

WelcomeDear Delegates, my Fellow Servants, Observers and Friends, warm greetings in the sweet name of our Lord, Jesus Christ. We are assembled here today once again to consider prayerfully all our ELCM affairs – congregations, auxiliary bodies, diakonia - and make decisions wisely, prudently and prayerfully for the sake of our church future. This is where we set the tone for the next fiscal year for our Diocese.

I welcome all of you in the name of the Father, of the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Our objectives that were spelt six years ago remain unchanged - EXPANDING and STRENGTHENING. I would like to review our progress so that we can be informed and encouraged to move on boldly.

Strengthening and ExpandingMost of you are now familiar with our ELCM theme STRENGTHENING and EXPANDING. Some of you have wondered why the same every year. This theme is my guiding ethos of my office as Bishop. I do not want to criticize what people do in other denominations but this is our theme that I have set.

In STRENGTHENING we spelt out the need for i. nurturing spiritual growth by understanding God’s love for us; ii. build self-reliant projects as a way to become an integral part of the

local community in which we subsists; iii. train our clergy and laity slowly so that they will provide the skills

and leadership for our future generation; iv. build close ties with any para-church organizations, migrant

community, and independent congregations we can reach out to; and

v. build our capacity for growth and consider changing our ways that often hinders Mission.

I also set out five areas that we should pay serious attention to and monitor closely for the EXPANSION of the Church. They are namely,

i. building new membership; ii. targeting and opening new areas of ministry; iii. streamlining and coordinating existing auxiliary bodies; iv. increasing our diakonia ministry; and v. reforming our financial faithfulness.

I have explained at great length what these objectives imply to both pastors and lay people. But after serving for six years now, I realize our church, the ELCM should be urgently concerned with these three areas that I am going to spell out.

1

Firstly, let me clarify where we are socio-economically. Culturally, we are basically a Tamil speaking church. However, we also enjoy a diversity – four of our congregations speak English as their medium of faith. As a result we are largely an Indian church but fast becoming an urban modern Malaysian community. We also enjoy the company various ethnic groups worhsipping with us. They are the Batak Indonesians, the Punjabis, Malayalees, Telugus, and various other groups of South Asians. Let’s not leave out the sprinkling of Chinese in our midst. This should disabuse those who accuse ELCM is a ethno-centric church as if it is a sin. To exclude others on the basis of ethnicity is wrong indeed, un-Christian and that is not what we are.

Secondly, I want to let you know that many of our members are deeply influenced by the quiet work of Pentecostals who are offering cheap theological education. Let me remind you that we are Lutherans. Because we are Lutherans we acknowledge the gifts of the Holy Spirit and the authority that comes from the Cross but the centrality of our doctrine is salvation on the Cross, faith and God’s will for all people. The gifts of the Holy Spirit are not to be made our central focus or preoccupation. The gifts are to be used for service and not for self-validation… self-validation as an individual saved and chosen by God is a task already accomplished by Christ. [Let me give you an example: I was once shocked to hear a church member insist to a pastor that he must pray loudly and shout against the devil to be effective.] These sort of teachings that make acts of piety the focus of living is wrong. We need rules to live by, like praying daily, and saying grace before meals are good. But beyond a certain limits, rules become blind rituals like praying 4 hours daily is more effective than praying three and half hours. Praying holding hands sends a more powerful message to the prayer department in Heaven than if you pray quietly in your room. Beware of these ritualisms.

We also have a strain of teaching brought over from America especially that we call 20th century evangelicals. They also claim themselves to be “evangelicals”. They claim that life should conform to the Bible and what irritates me is that they do so, somewhat selectively. There is no room for cultural diversity and their prescribed cultural norm is a version of middle-class white American variety. King James Version is the only canon – all others are not of God; and by the way, their God speaks English; and you probably have to wear a tie or cover your head to church as a sign of compulsory modesty.

Let me affirm to you today – the centrality of our faith is the knowledge of Christ dying on the Cross for our salvation – that is the purpose of the Bible. Gifts are to be used for the service of the poor and sick in order to meet their needs – not to earn spiritual points or earn a place in heaven in order to meet our spiritual insecurity. All prayers are heard, even that of a small child. The Bible is perfect only in the sense that it is inspired by God and was purposed by our God as a revelation for our salvation. Immaterial

2

what version of the Bible one uses it is always imperfectly understood, or even translated. We can only read and understand its purpose prayerfully, humbly in ever deepening grasp. We should never fear saying “This aspect of our Scripture, I do not understand.” Our doctrines are also embedded in our Liturgy, and the reading of the Bible is made a Christian habit in our Lectionary. As Lutherans we have our own culture of worship, diakonia and living confidently in the world. So being a Lutheran do not run after this “powerful speaker” or that “annointed preacher”. It is not wrong to hear them speak the word of God but we need to examine them carefully. An itinerant preacher owes a duty of doctrinal correctness more than a resident pastor.

Having said that let us now turn our focus onto other pressing issues.

Faithfulness and FinanceThe value of the ministry of ELCM is seen in the good results it has produced. There is a tenacious group of Lutherans in leadership, both locally and at Diocesan level, who are committed to church and family. And they are the core of our Lutheran congregations in Malaysia. They maintain the annual cycle of rituals and attend to all the particularism of Lutheran customs, keep the priority of the Lutheran liturgy, use of language and so forth. They are a vital factor in Church leadership. Without their commitment in the face of adversity, the ELCM would have long ago disappeared. This is ELCM and we must be thankful for this tradition and the tradition-keepers. We must build our ELCM with the people who laid this foundation in mind. And do the necessary correction with that status quo securely in its place.

On the other hand, we have a problem of each congregation being so focussed on their own problems, and their petty politics (which are inevitably among relatives or close friends) they fail to see the larger picture. While the Lutherans of the richer churches inevitably provide the leadership of the Diocese, such leadership seems not too concerned with the well-being and growth of outlying churches that are invariably poor. There are congregations sitting on half a million ringgit FDs not knowing what to do with it, while at the same time we have congregations struggling to raise a down payment to buy a van. This uneven distribution of church wealth is unhealthy and need to be addressed. Let us look at our financial policies and habits as a whole.

In the early church the Christians gave up all their belongings and wealth, even though the Scripture mandated to tithe only 10% of our income. Ironically, God’s wisdom was not followed by the early church then, and neither do we now. In the ELCM, we obligate ourselves by law to tithe $50 or $30 per month, depending if one is employed or not. These so-called “tithes” are really a subscription for membership privileges. We should not call it tithes as if it is the Biblical tithe of 10% of one’s income. Many give more than $50 and feel satisfied by it. Let me say this: it is a spiritual affliction that needs to be repented. While tithing remains a private

3

arrangement with oneself and God, as a Bishop I know the truth, and I can smell who truly tithes and who do not from the way one speaks. Some of our members actually do not tithe at all, but allow their parents to “tithe” on their behalf. Worse, these paper-members take their real tithes to other denominations. You can see their faces when a crisis hits them, and our pastors running about dealing with Lutheran strangers. When our pastors talk about tithing, many ugly prejudices emerge and there is no shortage of very clever excuses for withholding their tithes. Should we not be tired of such excuses? Should we be not be upset by people who do not want to pull the weight but want to sit in Local Councils, and hold positions of responsibility in the Church?

This unfaithfullness-before-God attitude has dire consequences. It is dishonouring God to say “I tithe” when in reality we do not. It is sin to give less than we ought to and pretend that we have done right. The ELCM does not have enough to pay our pastors; or pay for new pastors. So the DC busies itself in collecting rentals and increasing revenues to pay for the existing pastors. To tell you the truth, sadly, we are also very busy finding out ways to reduce our spending on Pastors and in mission work. We are also sadly happy to have part-time pastors, and make do with retired pastors, and poorly qualified pastors. This trend must be arrested. It cannot be arrested if the congregations are unfaithful before God.

Church GrowthAnother truth that was sugar-coated for you last year is this: The ELCM has stopped growing. Our full “tithing” membership in 2008 was 1,123 and it dropped to 1,076 in 2014. It would have been a sharper drop if not for the 182 members that our Outreach Centres brought in. In other words, if not for the Outreach Centres the drop in membership would have been 1,123 in 2008 to 894 in 2014! And yet the older congregations and the richer congregations prefer to save money in FDs rather than take initiatives in Outreach Centres.

Whichever outreach centres that the DC initiates, we fund it for a year by supplying a worker. If progress is slow, it must be adopted by an existing congregation. Failing which we will close it down. Over the last one year, I have closed 3 Outreach Centres because it did not meet the minimum in terms of membership or giving. But the truth is that I have not been able to get congregations to adopt these missionary works and get involved to move it for another year. This is sad. I encourage our Congregations to initiate new Outreach Centres or adopt existing centres and get involved.

On the other hand, two new Outreach Centres have opened, and I thank Pastor Esupillai and the congregation in Taman Sentosa in Klang there for their commitment. The DC is supporting such efforts from the DC Funds you give and the rentals we collect … but this support is very minimal. DC commitment is not hands-on because this is not the job of DC or the Bishop. To be involved in the Centres in their day-to-day development is the function of the Congregations. Setting up Outreach Centres is the

4

primary responsibility of the Congregation, and not that of the DC. Yet, DC is engaged in mission outreach because our Congregations are still learning to change their way of thinking. I think it is time for people who do not believe in evangelism or engage in evangelism to stand aside or step down and let the others do their job.

Training and Theological Education For the church to grow we need to send our young people to be trained in STM and also for others to be trained in-house. I think the dominant mood of ELCM is to send our sons and daughters for secular education so that they can build a materially wealthy life. It is impossible to argue with parents who are so focused on material wealth. To worsen the situation, our young people themselves the moment they start working get themselves trapped into debts buying a good life - a new car and a house or condominium. So, I am not surprised that in the last five years only two young men had come forth for ministry. Others say they lack “calling” when the truth is that there is wax in their ears that needs to be dug out.

Our own in-house training, the Deaconess Training, and the Voluntary Pastors Training had not gone as well as expected, and it did not yield any harvest in anyone graduating into full-time study in STM. As a result we have resorted to short term stop gap measures, i.e. ordaining lay-people to minister to our congregations. And this is not a happy state of affairs for congregations. The biggest problem with lay pastors is that they tire preaching after two years; and part-time pastors cannot be transferred away from their work place. In our ELCM we are looking at a crisis of pastor shortage. There are presently 12 trained pastors and by the end of the next two years there will be only nine trained pastors left. And three years down the road there will be seven. This is another trend that needs to be arrested and reversed.

Challenges AheadThe biggest challenge ahead of us is none other than us. The three areas that weigh at my heart these days are (a) our ingrained financial habits; (b) our pattern of church growth; and (c) our commitment to full-time ministry. I have outlined them above. I always have said that we may have to re-consider the sort of church our future generation is going to inherit. Nowadays I am thinking if there will be a church at all.

As far as challenges from the outside is concerned, let me tell you that there will always be pressure from the Islamists in the Government; and there will always be opportunities for new ministries, or new responses. There will always be natural calamities; the poor; and the tragedies facing churches and its members but if we do not put our house in order, there is no point talking about external challenges.

ConclusionWe need fresh blood at our leadership. The old must make room and the young must take over. There is an urgent need for change right now.

5

There is a need for young men and women to step forward to open their ears and heed the calling. There is a need for financial repentance before the Lord. We do not want to go the way of certain denominations that want their members in leadership to declare their income and tithe as a good example for the others to follow. However, those who find this threatening should examine their soul before God.

May the Lord who grants more than we can imagine and ask for, grant you wisdom and the courage to do what is right for the Lord.

Right Rev Dr Solomon Rajah Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Malaysia

6